Book Review: Flux by Ron Goulart

 

Flux By Ron Goulart

159 pages, Mass Market Paperback
Published June, 1974 by DAW

 

On a Thursday in 1948 When he was fifteen years old Ron Goulart stepped into a house on Dana Street in Berkeley to take the $1 class on how to write Science Fiction. He is not as famous as his fellow students Marion Zimmer Bradley, Philip K. Dick, or even his teacher and host Anthony Boucher. That said Goulart was no slouch, publishing many SF novels. While just a few years younger he sold his first story one year after PKD in 1952, and they were a part of Boucher’s secret pipeline that went from the living room of his house straight to The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.

 

When Goulart died in 2022 he was known as a pop culture historian and Science Fiction author. He got on my radar because of something he did in 1965, he asked Phil Dick for advice on writing a novel. He wanted to get together for coffee but thanks to some healthy paranoia Phil asked that he could write a letter instead, as his phone was tapped and his car would only go to his therapist's office according to Goulart's account.  The 5-page letter not addressed to any person is an outline of Philip K. Dick’s formula, and it is a controversial thing as PKD’s friends and colleagues have more than once referred to it as Bullshit, or rejected the notion that Phil followed a formula, all this despite the letter being cited in Sutin’s Divine Invasions bio of PKD.

 

So yeah, Goulart is important to me because the Formula is the basis of a chapter of my book Unfinished PKD, I developed a lecture on it and even wrote my novel using the formula. The fact was that I had not yet read any Ron Goulart, and I knew I would have to fix that. Flux caught my attention, but had I known it was the third in a series I probably wouldn’t have started here. 

 

Flux is a novel that fits my interests, so I am glad to have started here.  If this novel is indicative of his greater style I don’t know, I certainly think it is hard to judge an author by a single work. Flux is a piece of great comedy, and reminds me of the style of Douglas Adams, Rudy Rucker or Robert Sheckley who always had a very tongue-in-cheek style of writing the fantastic.

 

The story of Ben Jolson, a shapeshifter, is an essential skill to have when you are a far-future spy. This is the third book of the Chameleon Corps novels, and I sorta figured out in the first couple of chapters that there was more story than I realized. A spy who can pretend to be another person or object sets up a hyper-SF version of Mission Impossible.

 

Jolson is sent to this colony world Jasper after a series of protests turns violent in the most curious way. In the book, it is referred to as the Suicide Kid problem. Goulart who was a student in college during the 50s was commenting through science fiction on the radical student movements. After finishing the novel, I got the impression that Goulart sympathized with the progressive agenda but was laughing at the movement. Good-natured mostly, but it does start with a movement of students who are so against repression that they have turned to suicide bombing.

 

All inspired by the radical protest poet who is part Abbie Hoffman and part Jim Morrison. 

 

“His name is Bugs Mainey, heard of him on Barnum?”

“Poet, isn’t he?” Jolson bent closer and studied the miniature man.

“Political poet, yes,” said Wheeler-Woolsey. “I’ll sleepbrief you on him and his works. He’s very prolific and fond of self-quotes.”

 

Before I get into Bugs, I loved the little world-building with the sleepbrief method of transmitting information. I wonder how many times after a meeting someone would say “Well that could have been a sleepbrief.”  Bugs is a character built for comedy, a lack of self-awareness, and driving the protest movement with his poems and songs. Jolson having to pretend to be him sets up some funny moments but I felt some moments were left on the table.

 

The world-building in the novel is funny throughout, Goulart sets up gags and pays them off, and the tone reminds me of Dr. Strangelove, this is at a level of just almost over the line into spoof or parody. As serious as some of the messaging is, the jokes never stop he might have been following the AE Van Vogt idea of a new idea every 800 words, but a joke and an SF idea at the same time. For that reason, this book was hilarious, and early on I was wondering why this was not a classic. 

 

There were also weird moments like this scene where the colonists were regularly having robots be the victim of simulated racism. Why and what point Goulart was making with this I wasn’t sure.

 

“Don’t get upset Jolson. They’re all androids,” said the PEO man. “See you won’t see any real blacks in this part of Jasper. Those are just androids out there, for fun.”

A ten-year-old black boy android fell over in the snow, synthetic blood flowing from his nose. I bet the night show is even more fun.”

 

Fun? I think Goulart was trying to make a point about outrage culture, as the youth movements are looking for something to be constantly outraged about. Maybe I was a bit confused and uncomfortable with this chapter. It was a stark contrast to the humor of the rest of the book.  Goulart is keeping up with the satirical nature, but this chapter was not funny, just uncomfortable.

 

Most of the book is straight-up humor and much of it is built on the back of Science fictional concepts one of my favorites was A Jack the Ripper Cosplayer complaining that he could catch any victims or this scene…

 

“R.S.,” said Rosenfield to Jolson, stands for remote sex. Am I getting this straight, J.Jack?”

“Yes.”

“The whole thing is a branch of cybernetics and advocates of remote sex and telemetric intercourse- that's what T.I. stands for, isn’t it J. Jack?”

“Yes, yes.”

“The main idea is,” Continued Rosenfield, “Is you and your wife-by the way Tunky, we still believe in sex only among married people here in Town center #1 – you and your wife can take advantage of the latest gadgets and not have direct contact at all.”

 

Probably my favorite scene was when he has a character Leftover trying to explain the various youth movements, in a scene that explains the generational divide in a hilariously concrete way.

 

“Skinny’s the co-chair of the Killmom movement,” explained Leftover.

“It’s Killgranny,” corrected the pale boy. He dangled and shook the cord and the harmonica fragment fell free.”

“I can’t keep up. Things have changed a lot since my patricidal days.”

“They used to call themselves Killmom,” said mother Bluebird, “then a schism developed. Skinny opted to go along with the portion of dedicated kids who wat to strangle only very old ladies and thereby get them out of the way of progress, Killmom is still staunching dedicated to knocking off any broad over forty. All of them were inspired by your pioneering work in Killpop, Lefty.”

 

Goulart also makes use of repeating gags throughout the novel including Bugs poem titles that seemed a purposeful dig at Bob Dylan.

 

“The man who recorded ‘Head on the Chopping Block and One Foot in the Grave Talking Blues.”

 

Flux is a very funny SF novel, that is filled with radical ideas and some next-level humor. It is dated and I wondered if some of it felt like an old guy talking about a younger generation that was out of touch at the time. Hard for me to say. Some of the humor is not PC by modern SF standards including jokes that made me laugh despite knowledge that the shit wouldn’t fly today. 

 

As an example of Goulart, it seems like a good place to start. The book starts stronger and for the first 2/3 I thought I was reading a forgotten classic. Then the final act sputters out a bit, it doesn’t seem to end with a structure it started with. IT sort of just ends, I didn’t feel the mission on Jasper was solved at all. Over all I enjoyed it. The good in the first part out-weighed the rough parts.